I will just go ahead and cite this fine comment by someone called Sanguinity, because I agree with it wholeheartedly and I am too lazy to write my own comment:
One of the big stereotypes about bisexual people is that we don’t really exist, that we’re just liars, that allegedly bisexual men are just gay men who can’t deal with the stigma of being gay, that allegedly bisexual women are just straight women who are out to catch straight men with the lure of potential hot girl-on-girl action. Rudder just repeats all of those stereotypes straight up, on no stronger evidence than what he believes bisexual messaging patterns “ought” to look like. Basically, Rudder is creating his own definition of bisexual, and then calling self-identified bisexuals liars because we don’t meet the definition he made up.
Assumptions that Rudder is making here include: that a single online dating service captures all of a person’s dating interests (as opposed to individuals using different venues in different ways); that individuals’ histories on this single online dating service are long enough that the data would not be skewed by bisexuals who are just looking for a particular gender this moment/month/year; that sexual interest in both genders manifests as consistent sexual action toward both genders (there are many reasons why a bisexual person may be looking for dates with only one gender at any given time).
Using myself as an example: I’m a polyamorous bisexual woman; I’m married to a woman (or would be, if my state allowed it); I’ve only ever used online dating services to find relationships with men. Rudder would characterize me as someone who is lying about my bisexuality in order to be more alluring to men. But I am not lying; his data just fails to capture all of my relationships. Additionally, his characterization that I find the Hot Bi Babe phenomenon an asset when looking for a man to date is a ludicrous inversion of my actual experience: I value my relationship with my wife far too much to allow some dude who fetishizes it anywhere near it, and yet my relationship with her does in fact draw many dudes who fetishize it, and they are difficult to sort out from the guys I would want to date. Being bisexual makes it harder to find the men I might want to have relationships with, not easier.
And note well, please: my scenario isn’t the only scenario that Rudder would mischaracterize as “lying”.
The data here may be interesting — a preponderance of self-identified bisexuals use this single online dating service to message one gender only — but Rudder’s interpretations of that data is a complete mess, and far overreaches the data he actually has.
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti